


When one wakes up

by yellow_dudmarine



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 06:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14514687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_dudmarine/pseuds/yellow_dudmarine
Summary: Two months after, Artemis bitterly struggles through life, trying to cope with his amnesia. But once again, belowground, the People want his help. No rest for the weary.





	When one wakes up

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place a couple months after the end of the seres. ive got a sort of a plan for this one, but really ill just see how it goes. first chapter's more about establishing the universe, with how im planning this i think the rating will ned to go up. it is a crossover but it will focus mainly on the characters from artemis fowl. any criticism or suggestions are appreciated, thanks a ton  
> disclaimer: i dont own any of the characters, etc all property of respective authors.

### Chapter One

Artemis woke up alone in the darkness, the world silent around him except for the sound of running water on his back.

How long? he wondered. How long have I been in here?

Sighing, he stood up and shut off the water. As he grabbed a towel and stepped out of the shower, the bathroom was lit by the newly installed motion-activated lights, which Butler had recently bought in order to lower power consumption in the manor.

Artemis quickly dressed himself, hoping he wasn't too late for breakfast.

Since his resurrection a couple months ago, Artemis had developed a number of new traits, which included falling asleep in the shower, a liking for greasy pizza, and a dislike for the smell of certain flowers. At least, Butler had said they were new to him.

Artemis himself only knew of his own past through what others told him, with his own memories of these events tucked back in some hidden corner of his brain, perhaps never to see the light.

He had tried in vain to restore them, but all attempts had failed. Butler had shown him videos that a younger Artemis had made three or four years earlier, for the express purpose of sparking some sort of memory recovery, but all this had managed to do was make Artemis question whether he had a twin brother. Perhaps, he had suggested to Butler, there was a secret twin, and they had in fact brought the wrong person back. After all, the Artemis on the screen certainly didn't ring any bells.

Holly, on the other hand, took a more practical approach. She showed him some sort of coin with a hole in it. An acorn, which was rather ridiculous. Some old pictures, as well, before giving up and meticulously retelling his past with so many monotonous details Artemis almost became conditioned to fall asleep at the sound of her voice. He wondered when the twelve hundred page biography was coming out.

_Artemis Fowl - A man forgotten._ Hmm. He didn't like the sound of that. Perhaps simply _Artemis Fowl_. Maybe split it to make some additional books too. Seven was a nice number. Eight books total. Could be quite profitable, with some luck, and if anyone would actually believe anything written in them.

But one thing was for certain. His memories weren't coming back anytime soon.

As for his new habits, Artemis attributed them to Foaly's poor clone-growing skills. "Could've made me taller, too," he muttered to himself. Artemis did not like asking Butler every time he needed something on a high shelf.

He opened the bathroom door and nearly jumped in surprise to see Holly leaning by the door.

"Dropping by unannounced?" Artemis asked.

Holly shrugged. "Hello, Artemis. How long does it take Mud Men to shower? A goblin could've invented quantum physics in the time I've been waiting. Butler didn't even drop by to say hi."

"Butler probably doesn't know you're here." he replied. "Security at the manor is rather lapse, or, ah, nonexistent, these days. We don't deal in crime too often anymore, after all. Anyways, what brings you here today?"

"Foaly wants to see you. Belowground. I was supposed to have you in a shuttle forty minutes ago. Get what you need and let's go." Holly said, dryly.

Artemis frowned. "What's the rush? I haven't had breakfast yet. Surely if it were an emergency you wouldn't have waited for however long you've been here."

"Five minutes. That's all I'm giving you. I'll be in the courtyard."

\----------

Ten minutes later, Artemis strolled out of the manor leisurely, half a croissant still in his hand. He was followed by Juliet, wearing her trademark jade hairpiece.

Holly scowled. "I said five minutes. And I don't recall asking you to bring Juliet."

Artemis smiled. "Really, Holly. I'm not about to bend over backwards, even for Foaly."

"Wipe that smile off your face, Mud Boy." She tossed a larger than average duffel bag at Artemis, three letters printed on the bag: LEP.

"What's this for?" asked Juliet apprehensively.

"That's a luxury fairy transport, outfitted with state of the art high definition televisions in surround sound," offered Holly sarcastically. "No. It's a duffel bag. And there's only room for one." She dumped the duffel bag upside down, and a few rusty tools fell out. "Don't worry, the bag's got air holes."

Artemis looked appalled. Sure, he could probably fit in it, but it would certainly be uncomfortable and cramped. "You expect me to jump in there? That is ridiculous."

"It's only for a couple hours, to get us belowground and through Haven," replied Holly. "Foaly has insisted on keeping this under the radar. In fact, I'm not even in the know on what's going on, or why we need you for anything."

"Seems like his paranoia's got the best of him."

Holly shrugged. "Sector Eight didn't budget for anything more, and it's safe enough against detection. I don't know anything more than what Foaly wants me to do, which is to get you belowground. Just get in the sack, Fowl. Haven't got all day."

"Alright, but first, I've got a quick question." Artemis said. "I'm sure you can give me that."

Holly groaned. "If it's anything about this operation, Artemis, I've told you, I don't -"

"It's not," Artemis said, interrupting. "It's actually about Opal Koboi, and it's been bothering me all morning."

"Koboi? I thought I'd gone over all of it with you already."

"Well, there's one detail that's been bothering me. Do you remember when Koboi tried to get the humans to destroy Haven with a molten iron probe and wipe out the People?" Artemis paused. "Because I sure don't." He chuckled at his own joke.

Finding humor in his own memory loss? The old Artemis rarely joked around, Holly thought.

"Anyways, I don't understand why she attempted to open the second lock and wipe out humankind on the surface. After all, she was already an enemy of the People," Artemis stopped to chuckle at this too, imagining the pixie complaining about her spa. "So, why wouldn't she try again to destroy Haven? Or perhaps Atlantis? And clearly her primary goal of opening the second lock was not to kill me, as she had plenty of opportunities to do so rather than focus on the second lock."

"There are many fairies who want eradication of the human race. If Opal had succeeded, she would have had plenty of support belowground from certain political groups."

"Really? You fairies would support someone who attempted to destroy your species?" Artemis sighed. "You know, Holly, what I'm hearing is that your kind is quite different from the picture you painted of the apparently 'peace-loving' People who'd never hurt a fly. Perhaps if you were more truthful about everything, my memories of the past would have already returned to me."

"Most fairies aren't like that," replied Holly defensively, feeling somewhat hurt by Artemis' comment. "I may not be fond of Mud Men, but I don't believe in killing. And yes, while I may have left out a few things about the past, I think you got the general idea."

Juliet interjected. "Artemis, I would strongly recommend against doing this. If my brother was here, he would never allow you to go alone."

"Good thing he isn't."

"Perhaps I'll get him, then." A bluff, Artemis thought.

"Enough bickering. Time to go," Holly said impatiently, pointing to the duffel bag. "Get in. And try not to move too much. Or breathe too hard."

Artemis carefully inspected the sack, finding the interior to be incredibly grimy and smelly.

"Don't stress too much, Juliet. It's bad for your health."

"This is not a good idea," Juliet warned a final time.

Artemis just shrugged.

\----------

Foaly was looking nervous.

Artemis watched, a little exhausted from the trip, as the centaur paced back and forth across the small windowless room, his hooves clip-clopping on the ceramic flooring. Artemis' neck still hurt from the awkward position he'd had in the duffel bag, and he was sure that the wrench he had been lying on had torn a hole in the back of his suit.

"This better be important, Foaly. I didn't come down here to watch you trot."

Foaly laughed. "Just let me get my thoughts in order, Mud Boy. You know me well enough to understand this is important."

"Not anymore, I don't. Get to the point." Artemis replied, a bit coldly. The words hung in the air for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. Foaly's smile faded.

 "You don't have to remind me every time, Artemis. Alright, I'm going to start from the beginning."

 "A few months ago, I was going through some of Root's old files. Paper files, so you can take a guess at their age. I'm talking before your great great grandfather was born, whenever that might have been. Old warrants, unsolved crimes, prisoner lists, mostly. Some interesting notes from Root, but nothing that would warrant a second look."

"But if I'm here, something in those files would have been valuable. A great revelation, perhaps. Lost in time, until you found it."

Foaly grinned. "No, Artemis. Nothing like that. They were just regular old boring files."

He continued. "What was interesting was an incident a week ago. A giant attack in southwest England. The first time I've actually seen one happen, and it was a total disaster, as you might imagine. By the time we were on site the giants were already gone, but the carnage spoke for itself. There was one thing though. We found a body, almost perfectly intact, which was certainly something given the condition of the other bodies. What's more is that there was no discernible cause of death, not a heart attack, stroke, no traces of anything unusual in his blood, nothing."

Artemis frowned. "But surely there's a medical explanation. Asphyxiation? An air embolism?"

"Perhaps," Foaly said, although he really meant "no".

"But then I remembered, something that I'd read months earlier. Take a look at this." he said excitedly, sliding an open folder over the table to Artemis. "One of Root's files. Almost two centuries old. And it fits the same profile perfectly. Massive violent catastrophe, some sort of beer flood. LEP did a cursory check, discovered an untouched body, no cause of death found. But even more interesting," he emphasized, pointing to some scrawl in the middle of a page, "is this. Signs of residual magic on the body. And unlike the giant attack, no fairies or magic were involved here. Just Mud Men."

"Foaly, you forget I can't read Gnomish," Artemis said pointedly. Not anymore, at least, he thought to himself. "And while this may be a very interesting coincidence, I don't see how it could be anything more than just a coincidence."

"And you'd be right on that, it does seem quite coincidental. But it warranted a second look, at least for me. And I found some very damning evidence. Something is afoot here."

"What evidence would that be?"

Foaly smiled gleefully, which was usually a sign that he had something he couldn't wait to tell Artemis. "If you'd read some of those files I sent you, you'd remember what I said about the Battle of Taillte. Did you?"

"Vaguely," Artemis replied.

"Well, not all fairies retreated underground afterwards. There were dissenters, as there always tend to be. Over time their populations dwindled as the humans drove them into hiding, they failed to progress much technologically, and they forgot who their ancestors were. LEP policy dictates a strict no communication policy with these fairies, which is easy to abide by, seeing how few there are."

He continued. "After a lot of effort, I was able to track down a centaur near the site of the incident." Foaly grimaced. "Those centaurs could really improve their hygiene. I practically had to coat myself in mud to pass for one of them."

"Anyways, he wasn't very open to questions, but I got two things. One, this newspaper clipping. Looks a bit old, but clearly magical, yet human-made. I believe the subject of the picture is involved, somehow."

Foaly passed Artemis a picture, clearly cut out from some sort of newspaper. A dark haired boy posing upright, maybe thirteen or fourteen, wearing some sort of robe. Round glasses, an jagged scar on his forehead. As Artemis watched, the ink seemed to rearrange itself, the boy turning to the right and tilting his head quizzically, as if there were something quite puzzling just out of frame.

"Simple magic. But magic nonetheless. This could be a huge problem, Artemis. If my suspicions are correct, it could mean that there are humans capable of using magic. And if fairies found out there were humans with magic, it could mean another war."

"A war the fairies would be certain to win, I presume. After all, Opal's second lock would have wiped out all of humanity. How hard could it be to win a war with weapons like that?" Artemis said.

"That spell was cast ten thousand years ago. Over time, magic has lost much of its potency. Why do you think Number One is such a powerful warlock? Because of the time stop, Artemis. But even so, to create such a spell today would be impossible, orders of magnitude more difficult than any magic even he could produce. No, any war fought today would cost tens of thousands of fairy lives, and hundreds of millions or even billions of human lives. That's why I needed to keep this all under wraps. This is something no one else can know about, Artemis And I need your help."

Artemis pondered. "That does sound bad. So, what do you have in mind?"

"The second piece of information. The name of the boy in this picture." Foaly said, pointing to the newspaper cutout.

"Harry Potter. I think we've got a few, uh, questions, to ask him. And not in such a nice manner."

Artemis understood.

__________

Night had fallen.

Artemis sat tentatively on the soft grass, staring blankly through the leafy trees that were like a shroud upon the land, shrouding it under the cover of darkness.

Holly approached, her face illuminated in the moonlight. "Tents are set up. Why couldn't we get some real equipment for this? I can't get used to this old Neutrino. The rations are awful, too. Whoever made them seems to think 'biscuit' is just another way to say 'hard tack'."

Artemis turned to face her. "Tell that to Foaly. It's the best he could get flying under the radar. And don't bring up the helmet thing again, you know it wasn't compatible with the encryption."

Foaly had given them two communication devices: a large block of a mobile phone, and an ancient-looking LEP helmet that continuously emitted an annoying high pitched buzzing noise. As he had explained to Artemis, he had done a little bit of tinkering to encrypt any communications sent from either device with the shared private key which he held a copy of belowground. Thus, only they could encrypt or decrypt any messages, and anyone who happened to intercept one would not be able to glean any information or impersonate either party. Foaly was taking security very seriously, and rightfully so.

"Alright, Artemis. I'll ask you again. Would you mind explaining what we're doing here? I don't like being kept in the dark."

Artemis sighed. Tomorrow, he thought. He would give her the rundown tomorrow.

"It's been a long day, Holly. Everything in due time. Everything." He said, as sincerely as he could manage.

"That better mean tomorrow, Mud Boy. I'll see you in the morning." Holly turned and headed back towards where the tents were set up, a small clearing in the middle of the forest, far enough from prying eyes but not too deep it'd be a hassle to pack up and head out. He knew he should probably get some sleep too.

It had been quite a day, Artemis thought, continuing to stare into black nothingness. He couldn't believe he was doing this. It certainly had been quite some day.

He decided to turn in for the night.


End file.
